Climate Resilience Lab: PopTech goes to Nairobi

The effects of climate change are well documented. Climactic events such as floods, hurricanes, tsunamis, typhoons, and prolonged droughts are among the most visible results of recent dramatic changes in the earth’s atmospheric conditions. Less visible, perhaps, is the effect these events have on the world’s most vulnerable populations – girls and women in resource-poor communities.

It is a cruel fact that those with the least resources to combat the effects of adverse climate events are also the most vulnerable to those effects. A 2011 Plan UK study convincingly articulates the degree to which girls and women bear the brunt of climate disasters:

Women and girls are recorded as 90% of those killed by the 1991 cyclone in Bangladesh and up to 80% of the loss of lives in the 2004 Asian Tsunami. In 2007, an estimated 1.5 million people were left homeless due to rains and flooding in 18 African countries with women and children representing more than three quarters of those displaced by natural disasters.

A study by the London School of Economics (LSE) analyzed disasters in 141 countries and concluded that gender differences in loss of lives due to natural disasters are directly linked to women’s economic and social rights. The study also found that in societies where women and men enjoy equal rights, losses in lives due to natural disasters were more gender balanced.

The LSE study found that boys are likely to receive preferential treatment in rescue efforts, and in the aftermath of disasters both women and girls suffer more from the shortages of food, and from the lack of privacy and safety of toilet and bathing facilities, and sleeping arrangements. In addition, in many countries, girls are discouraged from learning survival skills such as swimming or climbing.

When you add to this mix proscribed gender roles and cultural norms which place undue hardships on adolescent girls such as demanding household and family tasks and responsibilities, their lack of access to information and resources, lack of knowledge of their rights and of life-saving skills, and lack of power in decision-making, the problem makes itself manifestly clear.

Building resilience to climate change among at-risk communities is no easy task, but one thing is certain: girls and women must be active agents in the creation of any meaningful solutions. Strengthening the resilience of communities requires both a recognition of their place of the front lines of this battle and also must draw upon their unique skills, experiences, and knowledge.

This February 7-11, 2012, we will be hosting our Climate Resilience Lab in Nairobi, Kenya in collaboration with our partners from the Nike Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation in an attempt to address these very issues. The Lab will bring together a carefully chosen network of climate researchers, gender experts, social innovators, technologists, designers, and community champions, to explore new possibilities in this domain. Our goal is to move “beyond the white paper” to identify and collaborate on high-potential new approaches that can be tested, scaled, and implemented.

We will explore new ideas, interrogate existing models to see what’s working and what isn’t, and identify and build on the most effective methods as we move forward. We encourage you to visit the Lab's webpage, review the research, and meet our participants. We will be sending updates from the Lab itself as well as producing video, photographic, and written content that will tell the story of what the PopTech community is doing to address this timely and critically important issue.